Innovation and best practices for the Web

About this Blog

The blog is written by Brian Kelly. Brian is the Innovation Advocate based at CETIS, University of Bolton.

This blog functions as an open notebook which provides personal thoughts, reflections and observations on the role of the Web in higher and further education which I hope will inform readers and stimulate discussion and debate, both on this blog and elsewhere, including on Twitter.

Predicting the Future: Reality or Myth?

Two International Conferences: SAOIM 2014 and ELAG 2014

In June I gave talks and facilitated workshop sessions at two international conferences: SAOIM 2014, the 12th Biennial Southern African Online Information Meeting which was held in Pretoria on 3-6 June and ELAG 2014, the annual European Library Automation Group Conference which was held at the University of Bath on 10-13 June.

Our sessions complemented each other nicely, with Joe providing exercises in getting the 60+ libraries attended his half-day workshop session to be willing to consider the implications of technological developments, including developments such as the jet pack! Although Joe was not proposing this as a likely development, it provided a useful means of getting the participants to think beyond the current technical environment.

In my session I asked the 60+ workshop participants to work in groups to identify technological developments which they feel will be important in the short term and medium term. A Google Doc containing a summary of their conclusions is available. In the workshop I then went on to provide a methodology for making a business case fro investigating the technological developments further.

It seems that South Africa will shortly be introducing a Protection Of Personal Information (PPI and also known as POPI) Bill which is based on the privacy requirements which EU countries have enshrined in legislation. The bill is based on eight main principles. Of particular interest was the slide which described consent which must be obtained:

Consent that must be obtained

Before the data controller will be entitled to collect, use or process any personal information, it must obtain the prior written consent from the data subject to do so

Consent requirement = key feature of PPI Bill

Without consent no data that might have been collected may be used in any manner

Unlawful usage can result in huge fines & possibility of imprisonment

Although such legal requirements may not seem unreasonable the speaker went on to provide examples of the implications of the legislation:

You wish to provide a personalised recommendation service based on books library patrons have borrowed. You can’t until you have received written consent to do this!

You wish to send an email to a library patron whose books are overdue and is accruing fines. You can’t until you have received written consent to do this!

Based on the interpretation of the law provided by the speaker it would appear that the legislation could make it difficult for services such as academic libraries to carry out existing services and develop new services unless, perhaps, they update their terms and conditions to allow them to make use of personal data. In light of the uncertainties of the implications and how organisations should respond there may well be new consultancy opportunities for the South African legal profession!

I found this session of particular interest as it highlighted potential legal barriers to the development of useful services for users and the need to understand ways in which such barriers can be addressed, whether in ensuring that terms and conditions provide sufficient flexibility to cater for a changing legal environment or, alternatively, for organisations to be willing to take risks. In the case of the PPI legislation since the person who feels their personal information is being used without their consent has to make a complaint to the appropriate authorities it seems to me that the student will the overdue books who receives a reminder will be unlikely to make a complain that they haven’t given explicit permission to receive such alerts!

Next Steps in Supporting Organisations in Predicting and Planning for the Future

4 Responses to “Predicting the Future: Reality or Myth?”

Predicting the future? Fairly scant resources quoted here. It is mostly myth because the future is made by unintended consequences playing out in random ways, but “experts” predict the future based on intended & anticipated consequences, so get it wrong. How about Kondratieff, long-wave economic change driven by meta-technologies/ 50 year cycles of socio-technical change, microprocessor invented 1971 so 2021 a key future date. Yoneji Masuda, Managing in the Knowledge Economy, long-range economic forecasting. Perhaps most relevantly for your field is McLuhan’s Tetrad of change caused by new media. I’ve discussed in the Homi & the NeXT one http://heutagogicarchive.wordpress.com/next-2021/. Incidentally you might want to redesign the Library 2.0 memem map, because it is not a meme map, so doesn’t understand what O’Reilly was saying in What is Web 2.0. Hope this helps, Fred

Hi Fred
Thanks for the comments.
I agree that predicting the future can be difficult, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do so, in order to inform our planning processes. The uncertainties and unexpected developments mean that we need to be agile in our planning processes. This is what we tried to do in the workshops I mentioned – nit necessarily predict the future but understand a methodology which can help in providing such agility.
Thanks for the link, by the way – interesting to read your thoughts on the future from 1989.

Hi Brian, thanks, but I was not saying that we should not try to predict the future. I was pointing out that both those people who try to do so, often subject or area experts tend to say that “the future will be the same as the present only more so” – that is they offer a quantitative analysis, when the future changes will often be qualitatively different. What I tried to show in my 1989 piece.
I offered a number of models that allow for unintended consequences, especially Kondratieff, who was used by Masuda and can be combined with the model used in Understanding Technological Changehttp://blackrosebooks.net/go/profile-35322/products/view/understanding-technological-change/28467
In some ways the easier heuristic to use is that of McLuhan’s Tetrad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects.
Taleb wrote Black Swan to caution on quantitative predictions. I havent seen any modelling used in the UK that has any value, because of this flaw; Beyod future Horizons runs out 18months in the future as that is where quantitative modelling takes you. And we Brits are intellectually lazy too. Why not modify the Library 2.0 diagram so that it is a meme map not a bunch of bubbles for starters?
Nigel and I try to offer “development frameworks” to help with this, such as the PAH Continuum, the Emergent Learning Model and the Technology Stewards & Institutions model (Before & After Institutions)http://www.slideshare.net/fredgarnett/before-and-after-institutions
You also need to start from a definition of technology too. When I taught this (a unit on the social impact of IT) I gave a range of definitions. Then offered one of my own. “technology is order imposed on nature”
I’m sure the workshop was fun, but did you help anyone think more clearly about future modelling?

Hi Fred
Thanks for the additional comments.
I agree that there are temptations to regard the future as being an extrapolation of the future, only bigger, smaller, faster, … In my workshops I’ve gone back in time to explore how things didn’t turn out as we expected from the past (monorails, jetpacks, holidays on the moon, etc.) but sometimes technological developments outstrip the vision of science fiction (compare Captain James T Kirk’s communicator with an iPhone or Android phone).
In order to explore qualitatively different changes to the future I make use of scenario planning.
Note the work I’m involved in has similarities to the approaches taken by the NMC team in their Horizon reports.
Your question as to whether I helped anyone think more clearly about future modelling is a good one. In the conclusions I asked what people would do differently as a result if attending the session – and a couple of people said they intended to make use of the approaches in their own institution. I hope the porganisers will send me further feedback from the evaulaiation forms.
Ta for the further links – more reading for me!